


Heart Wrenching

by Alterius



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, F/F, Lunafreya Nox Fleuret Deserves Better, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-27 00:04:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18292859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alterius/pseuds/Alterius
Summary: Lunafreya was never meant to see the sun dip beneath the horizon with no sign of it ever rising again. She was never meant to know the fear of watching Noctis's friends venture into the dark and she wasn't prepared for them not to come back or to part ways with one of few women brave enough to go looking for them.





	Heart Wrenching

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lascivus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lascivus/gifts).



> My [fiance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lascivus/profile) requested something like this and didn't request in particular, so he got this. Lucky him.
> 
> He also beta'd this piece for me! Thank you, love!
> 
> Enjoy this soft moment with Cindy in an AU where Luna survived the battle with the Leviathan.

Things were getting worse. Yes, she’d lost touch with her powers. No longer could she heal or speak to the Astrals, as though she’d forgotten the very language they once spoke to her, but more than that, the days had grown shorter until the glimmer of light the sun offered had disappeared entirely. Eos had been lost to a blanket of darkness and worst of all, the king of Lucis had fallen in a sleep so deep inside the crystal that not even the voices of his closest friends could reach him.

Noctis was gone and the world that Ardyn had created—the one that mimicked the life he’d been living for  _ centuries _ —only worsened every day as the population dwindled. 

Things just kept getting worse because now, Prompto and Gladio hadn’t returned and her thoughts turned helplessly to the worst case scenarios that ate away at her heart and what hope she had left in the wake of this nightmare.

She thought first of Noctis, of seeing their  _ king _ step foot in Hammerhead with few to greet him. She thought first of a man who’d have to hear from  _ her _ that his friends had passed in his absence.

Lunafreya couldn’t even imagine the way his face would fall. She couldn’t bring herself to think about how much  _ easier _ it would become in less than a minute for him to bring his own life to an unfitting end. 

It only made her further despise her loss of power. It frustrated her to think that fighting Leviathan had siphoned that last bit of strength from her bones and barely left her alive. Were she still the Oracle she had once been, she might be able to venture into the dark and  _ help _ them. 

Instead, this task was left to another. Going after Gladio and Prompto was the job of a strong, capable woman she scarcely knew, but deeply respected even after the short time Lunafreya had spent here in the safety of Hammerhead. Mere days after the sun had disappeared beneath the horizon for the last time, Miss Cindy had become something of a leader here amidst the seasoned hunters and refuges that managed to make it there before the lights in Galdin Quay went out. 

It feels impossible to approach her, no matter how kind she’s been. Though she’d taken her in, given her a bed to sleep in and clothes to wear, Lunafreya’s had little to offer in return for her hospitality. What little strength she’d had prior to the battle with Leviathan had fled right alongside her powers. 

No longer could she commune with the gods or call forth their will to heal her people. Apart from pretty words, she was useless—or at least she  _ felt  _ that way, no matter who tried to convince her of her worth in these trying times.

“Miss Cindy,” she finally says after a long moment of excruciating silence. She can only watch the woman prepare for departure for so long before the fear eating away at her finally takes hold and she’s forced to speak. 

As soon as the words are out of her mouth, Miss Cindy Aurum turns to address her. Soft green eyes meet her own and suddenly, she is awash with a sense of tranquility she hasn’t known in weeks and she wants to cling—hopelessly,  _ desperately _ —to the woman before her and the hope she instills in her that Prompto and Gladio alike are alive, wherever they might be now. 

“Need somethin’, Lady Lunafreya?”

The garage is empty, save for them and the car Miss Cindy’s been working tirelessly on for the last few hours. The lighting is dim enough to conserve some amount of power, but bright enough that it still staves off the daemons that lurk now in every dark corner of the world. 

Alone as they might be, in a room so quiet that a pin dropping would be audible, Lunafreya finds herself choking on every ounce of anxiety pooling in her stomach. She’s dizzy with the fear of asking Miss Cindy for something so selfish, so beyond the realm of what she would dare consider acceptable. 

Never once had Lunafreya considered her own needs anything more than secondary, if even that. She  _ needed _ to be there for her people, more than she ever thought she would need even a brief moment of comfort from a woman who was little more than a stranger. 

But today was different. Today, she was not the Oracle she once was. The powers that had been loaned to her by the Astrals had been revoked and she had been robbed of her ability to give even momentary peace to her people. 

“Please, don’t walk out that door,” she says after a moment of silence that leaves her heart pounding in her chest. Her words spark an unfamiliar light in Cindy’s eyes that overwhelms Luna with a sense of guilt that might never be quelled. 

Gone is Cindy’s brilliant smile, replaced by the same frown she wore when someone came to her with grave news. The loss of Cindy’s keeps Lunafreya from finding her own more so than usual. So heavy is her heart with the loss that came with the deaths of so many that little keeps her spirits up, save for the optimism of people such as Cindy. 

It only feels worse to stand here knowing she is the cause of yet another to lose their smile. Already she bore the weight of so many other failures, yet she still chose to add this on top of so many others.

“If you don’t come back… I…”

Her words are lost to her fear, to the anxious rumblings in her heart that was already screaming for the perceived loss of men like Gladio and Prompto, whom she might never lay eyes on again. 

But Cindy doesn’t shy away from her because of this. Nothing about her pessimism shocks her like it does so many others. Here, there is no pressure to uphold a false image of hope that Lunafreya can’t bring herself to believe most days. 

“Your Highness, ya ain’t gotta worry about little old me,” Cindy says with a laugh so brilliant that it seizes that stress from her soul and slays it. “Just cause those boys can’t take the heat, don’t mean I can’t.” 

Luna knows that she should agree, that nothing leading up to this point had ever given her the impression that Cindy couldn’t fare better than most beyond the boundary of the outpost. But she couldn’t help the cold, icy grip of fear taking hold of her. Every day, it’s grasp was strengthened and terror in her heart only grew. 

People were dying left and right, disappearing into the night sky and becoming daemons themselves. Luna’s concerns couldn’t be so easily assuaged and Cindy is too kind to leave her to war with these feelings on her own, much like how she couldn’t leave Prompto and Gladio out there to do the same.

Cindy reaches into her back pocket a moment later, giving her little in way of words of comfort and instead handing her the item in question.

“Here,” she says, as if her intentions are clear, though Luna feels only confusion in their wake. 

“I’m sorry, but I don’t understand.”

What lays across both her palms is a  _ wrench  _ of all things, old and clearly well taken care of, much like the rest of Cindy’s equipment. Still, she finds it odd to be handed such an important tool that Cindy would surely need. 

“You’ll hold onto her for me, won’t ya? That beauty is my good luck charm and I’m gonna be comin’ back for her.”

She says it as though it ought to quell the worst of her fears and perhaps it does. It’s a physical representation of a promise that Lunafreya is not accustomed to, but she finds herself somehow calmed by the idea that, if nothing else, Cindy would be returning for this tool too important to her trade to leave behind otherwise. 

“I’ll need it to give those two boys a good smackin’ around for worrying ya when we get back,” Cindy says with a confidence that even Lunafreya is tempted to believe. For the first time since Prompto was presumed missing and Gladio elected to go looking for him, Luna felt there was no well-intended lie amidst the promise being made.

“Please,” Luna starts, feeling like anyone but herself in these few moments, when her heart ached with the fear of losing not one nor two, but all three of them in one fell swoop. It didn’t much matter how desperately she wanted to look strong, for she knows her world is on the verge of collapsing beneath her feet with so many deaths and disappearances fresh on her mind. 

She can’t take even one more, much less three.

“Please come back.” 


End file.
